


But my faith sustains me

by CmonCmon



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Chant, Doubt, F/M, Fear, Introspection, Nightmares, Pain, Red Lyrium, Religion, Temptation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3309491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CmonCmon/pseuds/CmonCmon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots of Cullen Rutherford's relationship with faith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Doubt

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to SailorSol for being the terrible person who made me post this (and caught my typos)

_O Maker, hear my cry:_  
 _Guide me through the blackest nights_  
 _Steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked_  
 _Make me to rest in the warmest places._

There was no warmth here. There was no rest here. One step, then another, his lips moving in time. There was no sound from the words, none to be heard over the rushing of the icy wind or the scrape of the new snow against the crust of old snow.

There was light at least, thin light which carried only the hint of warmth in the bone-whistling cold. His men had done their best. His men, his lips twisted into something of a snarl. The old scar ached. His men. What few were left of his men had done what was right, gathered wood, set shelters, seen to those with less than themselves.

And him? He’d done as he’d been told. He’d shepherded the ones he could out of Haven as the world fell down around them. He had left her to die.

He composed his face, and nodded as he passed the next guard on patrol. Patrol for what? Wolves? They had better sense than to walk the snowbanks on a night like this. Demons? They wouldn’t feel the cold. Cullen knew the men left with the strength and the heart left to fight could be numbered between his two numbed hands. The words of the Chant moved on, through the rest of Transfigurations.

_Maker, my enemies are abundant._  
 _Many are those who rise up against me._  
 _But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion,_  
 _Should they set themselves against me._

He had left her, with her companions, to fight. Her companions had arrived at camp eventually - bloody, weak, and wobbling. They had mere drops of potion left in a cracked flask between them. They had been rushed near the fire, struggling to speak for the cold and fatigue. Cullen looked at them and felt the burning rush of his own anger. They were here, alive to be healed and consoled. Evelyn was not. Evelyn was not here. He knew she should be dead, her body cold as ice now, twisted and mangled in the avalanche.  


She had never been Evelyn before that moment in the Hall. She had looked him in the eye and told him to go. Not to run, flee the danger, but to lead the people like a commander. A protector. He thought of her strong body, almost as tall as he was, draped in that light armor she wore to slip unnoticed in the shadows. He should have given her his cape. Should have insisted he fight beside her.

He should simply keep walking his patrol.

It was his fourth, or his fifth. At some point the cold and the dark had blurred the rounds into one interminable patrol. After his second, he had attempted to sit by the fire and eat a bite of the roasted something someone had found. It was ashes in his mouth, barely hot and enough to wrench his worry-knotted stomach. He forced down the mouthful, and walked away from the fire. The guard on patrol did his best to hide the wobble in his step as he saw Cullen’s approach. The Commander only rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Take a turn by the fire. Sleep if you can. I have already rested some.”

It was a lie. There was no rest for him here. He dreaded the thought of sleep, dreaded the nightmares that waited him. He would walk his path until he was needed somewhere else, and then he would go on until there was nothing to do, or nothing left in him to do it.

_Though all before me is shadow,_  
 _Yet shall the Maker be my guide._  
 _I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond._  
 _For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light_  
 _And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost._

He walked, the words moving through him as a defense against the cold and the doubt.

She had been the one to strike up the conversations at Haven. She had been the one to startle him into stumbling, earnest answers to her teasing questions about chastity vows. Her easy humor, her vital warmth, had disoriented him. She was something strange, foreign to him. Highborn as she was said to be, her jokes were right out of the taverns. Her face was plain and scarred, her clothing equally common. It wasn’t until those final moments in the hall when he could really see her as she was - a woman who he would gladly fight beside.

His eyes scanned the shadows out of the habits of a lifetime. What if she was alive somewhere? What if he could save her if he only went back? Her party swore they had tried. The snow was too thick, too unstable. He would go, if not for his duty. He would have stayed to stand beside her, fight and die beside her, if not for that very same duty.  


She deserved better. He should have been better - better prepared, better informed. Anything. He was a man who understood unexpected loss. His life had been marked by it. Cullen paused his step at a movement in the snow, his numbed hands going to the sword at his side.

_O Creator, see me kneel:_  
 _For I walk only where You would bid me_

He watched as the huddled, unsteady shape began to crumble to the ground.  
Evelyn.

_Stand only in places You have blessed_  
 _Sing only the words You place in my throat_

“There! It’s her!” He shouted for his own benefit, but others heard him. Cullen had already started to run to her. His arms were around her before she hit the snow.  


In a moment, he lifted her into his arms. Long strides rushed her closer to the fire as the shouts went up for warm blankets and more wood. She was conscious, but barely, her eyes open long enough to gaze at him without any apparent comprehension. Her lips were nearly bloodless, her hair stiff with ice.

“I have you.” He shifted her closer to his body, cursing the heavy plate for keeping the heat of his body from warming her more. “Maker’s breath, you’re a miracle.” Cullen knew she did not share his manner of faith, but he didn’t care. Her survival was his miracle.

He set her down in the healer’s tent, and the camp came alive around them at the news of the Herald. Warm blankets were piled on her. The healer shoved him aside as if he was a lowly stable boy, and tended her before leaving to get more supplies.

Alone beside her again, he dropped to his knees beside the cot. Cullen shed his gloves, taking her hands in his cold ones. Even to his chilled touch, she felt like ice. He rubbed one, and then the other, before folding both her hands inside the palms of his. Anything to warm her. He pressed her hands to the warmth of his face and she hissed.

“Yes, it hurts, but that means you’re warming up.” He folded her hands back into his own.

_Though all before me is shadow,_  
 _Yet shall the Maker be my guide._  
 _I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond._  
 _For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light_  
 _And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost._

He recited the words aloud, even if she could not hear them.

The moment the healer returned, Cullen stood to leave without being told. He shed his fur-collared cloak and draped it over the Herald’s cot. Gloves in hand, he found a seat by his men at a fire. He watched the flames move in the dark as relief melted his strength. His knees could scarcely have held him if he tried to rise. It wasn’t long before the cold climbed through his armor and began to nip at him, sapping what deep reserve had kept him going.

“Commander.” Cassandra stood near, his cloak draped over her arm.

“Is she…?"

“Resting.” The Seeker held out the heavy folds of cloth. “Her wounds are tended, and she is resting. You appear under-dressed for this weather.” He took the cloak back and buckled it around his shoulders. It was the barest moment before he realized he could smell Evelyn on it.

“You will rest as well.” Cassandra was not asking.

“I will.” Perhaps he could, now. “After I finish my prayers.”

_Blessed are they who stand before_  
 _The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter._  
 _Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just._


	2. In Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A different side of Commander Cullen's relationship with the Chant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no idea so many people would take the time to read - thank you all! 
> 
> I debated on this one for a while, but the next snapshot should be up much sooner.

_And as the black clouds came upon them,_   
_They looked on what pride had wrought,_   
_And despaired._

Nothing made him different. There was no reason to believe he should succeed where others failed. The tremor in his hands, the deep ache in his bones, they gloated over his weakness. He was just another man; another man who could not resist the welcome rush of blue-tinted power.

Cullen had fought through the sleepless night. He had bitten down hard enough on the pain to make it through his morning drills. By the war room, his skin was pale and slick, his gear shifting on his frame like it belonged on another man. Like it belonged on the Templar he used to be.

He was not a man prone to pride. It had never been his particular demon, but there was no other explanation. He had chosen to abandon lyrium, as though his abstinence would spite the Order. Yet, he had the gall to believe he could be the same man to the Inquisition without it as it had made him to the Chantry.

The Templar Cullen Rutherford was not the man on his knees, retching from the waves of pain, as a knife twisted slowly behind this eyes. This folly was wholly Commander Cullen’s doing.

_All things in this world are finite._   
_What one man gains, another has lost._

He spoke the words aloud to control the shuddering. Cullen had gone months without lyrium, but he had begun to understand these spikes of pain. He was a dulled blade, and the harder he tried to strike out, the more the blows reverberated through him. Until he broke. The withdrawal had broken minds stronger than his.

Cullen pushed himself to his feet with the help of the chair and stood at his desk. The same old wooden box lay open where he had left it - a faded image of Andraste on the cover, the familiar paraphernalia on the other side.

It would end the pain. It would make him strong, make him sure and whole again. It would draw the aches from his bones, withdraw the gnawing pull of an old saw from behind his eyes. He could end this pain, with just one familiar stroke of the plunger.

He would go up the ladder to his loft, rinse his clammy skin with cold water and lie down in bed, but the aches in his bones made standing a challenge. The ladder was beyond him.

So many things were beyond him. The pain blinded him. The weakness shackled him.

_The one who repents, who has faith,_   
_Unshaken by the darkness of the world,_   
_He shall know true peace._

If climbing was beyond him, there were still some efforts that were not.

Cullen moved unsteadily to the center of the room. His sword sang out unevenly as he drew it, too loud to his own ears. The point of the blade bit into the floor, and Cullen sunk to his knees. There was a time he had found watching a candle burn down as he recited the Chant to be frivolous mysticism of the old Templars. Now, older, broken in ways he’d never imagined, Cullen knew what those days were training him for. Not to swing a sword or hold the shield, not testing the strength of his body.

His brothers and sisters were training him for the days that strength deserted him.

_But the one who repents, who has faith_   
_Unshaken by the darkness of the world,_   
_And boasts not, nor gloats_   
_Over the misfortunes of the weak, but takes delight_   
_In the Maker's law and creations, he shall know_   
_The peace of the Maker's benediction._

Cullen rested his aching forehead on the cold steel of the crossguard. His hands ached as he gripped on, in the effort to keep himself steady as the room pitched around him. He sharpened his mind to the words, to the metal against his skin. He narrowed his focus further, into a single point, sharp and bright as the tip of the blade. The words moved over his lips, audible despite the dry fingers of want closing his throat. The sound reverberated through the bones of his face, aching in a different sort of pain, one he welcomed.

The saw dragged deeper behind his eyes, but he simply spoke louder. His voice was barely more than a strangled whisper, but a roar in his own head. He could not remove the pain without the source of it - that too-small blue bottle that haunted his fevered dreams. There was no other balm for the pain, but he could drown it out singing the words of the chant, and with the strength of his focus.

 _The Light shall lead him safely_  
 _Through the paths of this world, and into the next._  
 _For he who trusts in the Maker, fire is his water._  
 _As the moth sees light and goes toward flame,_  
 _He should see fire and go towards Light_.

“Commander.” The door swung open.

The messenger stood for a moment, Cullen could hear the hesitation in his movement, but Cullen did not comment, did not move. One of Leliana’s crows.

The Commander did not lift his head. Could not, for anything less than an impending attack. He was fighting his own war, the only sound the familiar words, not the ring of weapon on shield. If he were to stop now, the battle would be lost.

He could hear the messenger set the pages down on the desk, and hesitate again. Cullen could not break his focus, Maker take manners.

_And he will know no fear of death, for the Maker_   
_Shall be his beacon and his shield, his foundation and his sword._

His eyes opened, golden and steady. Cullen levered himself to his feet. The sweat still clung uncomfortably, the faint trembling still moving through his limbs. He nodded once to the crow.

“Tell Lady Leliana I will review the notes before we return to the war table.” Cullen walked to his desk. The rough drawing of Andraste still gazed up at him, imploring him to consider what the pale blue vial could do for him.

Yes, Cullen closed the lid, he knew exactly what it could do for him, and he knew the cost.


	3. In Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen, nightmares, the chant, and his Inquisitor.

_With passion'd breath does the darkness creep._

_It is the whisper in the night, the lie upon your sleep._

The world was drenched in blood. Dripping wetly, sticking to his skin half-coagulated, dried in splattered arcs on the walls. He could smell the metallic tang of gore, the smoke of battles lost, and the unmistakable scent of death. The lingering charge of magic in the air raised the fine hair on his skin. Thick spikes of red lyrium drove through the walls. The screams of a dragon shook his bones.

Cullen was back in Kinloch Hold. Also, he wasn't.

Nightmares jumbled the horrors together, the lyrium, the dragon. The present confused the horrors of his past, new and terrible tableaus presented. This time, It was Evelyn he couldn't save, her eyes on his as the desire demons tortured him.

He would shut his eyes to the scenes presented, but he couldn't leave her to face this alone. His gaze held hers, the words of the Chant forced out between gritted teeth, through his wrenching pain.

If he reached out for the red, he would become one of those monsters.

Without it, he would never be enough to save her.

Maker help him. He needed to fight. He needed to stop this. He needed.

_The one who repents, who has faith,_

_Unshaken by the darkness of the world,_

_He shall know true peace._

Cullen woke, in his own quarters, the moon shining through the hole in his roof. Like a child afraid of the dark, it comforted him. His cold, nightmare sweat had soaked his hair, and the pillow behind his head. He had not woken the Inquisitor, which left him some measure of his pride. He had not cried out too loudly in the torments of his sleep.

Success though it was, Adamant had not been kind to him.

Cullen raised one trembling hand to brush Evelyn’s hair back from her face. A smile pulled at the slack corners of her lips. Clearly, her dreams were sweeter than his own. Cullen couldn't imagine she had known any fewer horrors, and yet, she slept peacefully. He licked his dry lips, and began to speak softly.

_The Light shall lead her safely_

_Through the paths of this world, and into the next._

_For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water._

_As the moth sees light and goes toward flame,_

_She should see fire and go towards Light._

He turned the words over, meditated on them until the hammering of his heart began to slow. What had happened between them, at his desk, Cullen paused mid-verse to swallow. Would she regret it? Resent it?

Between the crash of weapons and the barrage of magic, he had spoke the same words of protection for her at Adamant. His men were trained, drilled and armed to the best of his ability, but his strange, wonderful Inquisitor did not wear plate and swing a sword.

She featured prominently in his nightmares now, his feelings for her fresh fodder for the same old dreams. Some nights, she was cut down in front of his eyes, as he was too weak to save her. Other nights, she would be consumed by a demon, another instrument of his torture. The worst of all were the nights he dreamt he was the one who became the monster. It was his resolve that cracked, due to the red or another demon, but always due to his own failing, his own weakness. He was the one who would hurt her, and those nights he woke to the sound of his own screams.

Those nights, he fell to his knees and prayed for strength. Those were the nights he did not go back to sleep, but returned to his office to throw daggers into the dummy until there was light enough to get a start on his paperwork or train his early-rising troops.

_My Maker, know my heart_

_Take from me a life of sorrow_

_Lift me from a world of pain_

_Judge me worthy of Your endless pride_

His thumb brushed over her lips. How was there softness left in the world? How had he managed to find any? Cullen thought of the folly of the night before. It was not just another promise-laden kiss on the battlements. How could she understand how damaged he was, and yet sleep so peacefully beside him?

_My Creator, judge me whole:_

_Find me well within Your grace_

_Touch me with fire that I be cleansed_

_Tell me I have sung to Your approval_

She stirred in his arms. Her slim, calloused fingers brushed his bare chest, and Cullen paused his chant for fear of waking her. Instead, she shifted again, her arm wrapping around him to grip his shoulder. She held him like he was the one who needed protecting. In some ways, she was already protecting him.

_O Maker, hear my cry:_

_Seat me by Your side in death_

_Make me one within Your glory_

_And let the world once more see Your favor_

And when the sun rose, Cullen wondered, would this night never exist? He would see the Inquisitor across the war table every day she was at Skyhold. He would see her as he trained his men, as they met agents and dignitaries, and on the battlefield. Here, with him, would he meet the Inquisitor, or Evelyn?

He pushed that lock of hair back over her ear again. He would see her however she chose. He loved her, and he would do what pleased her. Cullen’s lips pulled up into a grudging smile. His love was always paid in service. He would serve in whatever capacity she wanted.

“Cullen?” Her voice was sleepy-soft. Her eyes opened, and she studied him for a moment in the starlight. “Not sleeping?”

“No. I’d rather watch you.” His scarred hand stroked her back, reaching down to pull the covers more closely around her.

_For You are the fire at the heart of the world_

_And comfort is only Yours to give._


	4. In Temptation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen wrestles with temptation during the "Before the Dawn" sidequest

_And there I saw the Black City,_

_Its towers forever stain'd,_

_Its gates forever shut._

_Heaven has been filled with silence,_

_I knew then,_

_And cross'd my heart with shame._

It was not a metaphor; the red lyrium did indeed sing.

He held the words of the Chant in the fore of his mind, in an effort to silence the song.

Cullen had thought Samson and and his guards would be the most difficult fight in the stronghold. Instead, the Inquisitor and her crew had fought through the guards, then the towering Behemoth.

Whatever fears Cullen might have harbored about returning to the fray with her, instead of leading his own men disappeared as the first wave fell. He fought beside them with sword and shield as her dual daggers whirled.

Sera, Blackwall, and Dorian made for a merry company of chaos and destruction. They talked so much. They talked before skirmishes, after them, and even during them. Cullen had never seen anything quite like it. The Inquisitor spoke, but her chatter was all instructions, not taunts.

They bantered on, but Cullen heard a very different sort of noise.

The red spears of lyrium whispered and hummed. It called to him. One look at the others told him he was the one who heard it.

The red struck a resonant tone with the lingering blue he hadn't yet purged from his system.

His bones were ringing like a crystal bell, echoing their song.

Standing surrounded by it, the red had a heat to it. It was a living thing, a hot breath that filled the air now that the battle had died down. It sunk into Cullen’s armor, pressing against his skin. He could feel the draw, and hated himself all the more for feeling it at all.

It was repellent, yet somehow alluring.

It struck all the same notes his memories of the Circle Tower did.

_Let the blade pass through the flesh,_

_Let my blood touch the ground,_

_Let my cries touch their hearts. Let mine be the last sacrifice._

He thought the words to himself as he crouched beside Maddox. The man sat propped against the overturned table, as stoic as a Tranquil ever was. The healers could not save him, the poison - the poison he had chosen to swallow - and the fires he had set had sealed his fate. The Tranquil would choose to die for Samson, and the thought enraged Cullen.

Rage was easy here, with the song and the heat in the air, with the needles of red slipped under his skin - with the silvered pull of temptation no one else could feel.

Maddox spoke slowly, his voice almost too soft for Cullen to hear over the song filling his ears.

“Samson saved me even before he needed me. He gave me purpose again. I… wanted to help.” The Tranquil slumped forward as the poison did the last of the work.

The pathetic death, the Tranquil with nothing to live for, fanned Cullen’s rage. He stepped away to pace, to shake off the voices.

To help. Maddox wanted to help the man who grew red lyrium on his prisoners. The man who had chosen to help end the world. Maddox had chosen total loyalty to the man who had saved him. Cullen’s eyes landed on the Inquisitor and felt the knife twist slowly in his gut. How many men had died for his orders? He wouldn’t believe it was for him, it was for the cause, and yet, how different could he really believe it to be?

No, Cullen shook his head, teeth locked into a grimace. He was nothing like Samson. He was  nothing like Maddox.

The Inquisitor watched him, waiting for some response to the man’s last breath.

“A dismal place to die. It can’t have been much of a place to live either, under Samson’s command.” This Samson. The maniac Red Templar. The old Samson smuggled love letters and slept in the next bunk. “‘He used to be kind’ only carries so far.”

The words dripped acid, the same toxic breath as the red shards around them. The man Samson used to be haunted Cullen. He was a man who had ended up in Lowtown, the man who had taken in Maddox before he needed a masterwork crafted, the man who was just a man with his future lost to a mistake. Not a monster. Samson the man drew uncomfortable lines to a life Cullen himself had avoided.

In this life, the Commander of the Inquisition could not give in to the temptation of sympathy. He could only scorn Samson the monster who had cost so many lives. It was so easy to hate. Cullen could touch the rage in his blood without any effort at all. The anger and disgust shielded him from the temptation, from the weakness of empathy.

It was Kirkwall all over again.

“He should be properly laid to rest.” The Inquisitor pulled him from his dark thoughts.

“I’ll have someone take care of it.” Cullen could barely bring himself to look at Maddox. The waste of the life, not the death, enough to disgust him. “Even Samson did his best for Maddox. We can do no less.”

Cullen followed behind the party, one foot in front of the others. Would they doubt him if they knew he could hear the song? Would Evelyn? He could not allow them to see the parallels that cut blood red lines between his life and Samson’s. He could not face them as they wondered how easily he could be sways or counted the bodies of the men who had died following his commands. Different, oh how he told himself, so different from Maddox and his poison, but dead none the less.

They spoke behind him - always talking. Evelyn made a sound of concern. Or was it pity? The Warden’s low rumble replied.

“Let him rage.” Blackwall spoke, his rough voice gentled. Not with pity, Blackwall was not a man who pitied. No, Cullen knew, it was understanding.

Only then did Cullen pause his pacing, his furious stomping like a caged beast. They watched him, not with suspicion or pity. Evelyn’s face was lined with worry. For him, even while he stood surrounded by choirs of whisper-voiced lyrium.

She believed in him more than he trusted himself, and he hated it.

Too much trust could be a lethal thing. Maddox’s cooling corpse was proof of that.

Cullen turned away to study the surroundings. He exhaled the words of the Chant under his breath.

_Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls._

_From these emerald waters doth life begin anew._

_Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you._

_In my arms lies Eternity_

“He left a note.” Cullen’s gaze fell on folded paper on the the long table. His pulse spiking. Samson must know. He must know Cullen could hear it, could feel it. He must know Cullen’s newest deep, dark, secret. “A note for me.”

The Commander scowled reading the letter. The words were no different than some of Cullen’s own. The Chantry had used them. Cullen had said the same. “Does he think I’ll understand?” Cullen scoffed, for the sake of the others. “What does he know?”

Samson knew more than Cullen wanted to ever admit.

Lyrium bottles licked clean, the tools, the note.

“We have him.” Cullen would recoil at the savage joy later, when the song had quieted in his ears and his blood.

_Those who oppose thee_

_Shall know the wrath of heaven._

_They shall cry out to their false gods,_

_And find silence._


End file.
